Developer mags? How can we gum up the works?

I live in Salt Lake City, and there is a large parcel behind my house with a fault line going through it. The owner is an asshole and has been trying to sell for 30 years. Developer after developer has passed on it, and now there is a guy who supposedly will be doing some drilling to determine fault line location. His plan is to begin building in 2 weeks (I doubt it... but...). Apparently the plan is to close on the lot, build a single family home. Past developers have looked at trying to get as many as 9 homes on the parcel, this guy has produced a drawing for 4, but the word is that he wants to just build one for now. I think it is a get the foot in the door and the sue for subdivision and entitlements.
What are levers available to gum things up and make it as difficult as possible for this guy to get his permit? Permit is not issued as of yet to my knowledge. We have spoken with the city many times over the years and they understand the significant challenges of building on the lot, including steep natural grades and cliffs, active fault lines, lack of storm water drain easement, required private drive and road to any homes that will not be maintained by the city.

Looking for ideas that we can act on to gum things up and make it as difficult/expensive for the guy as possible. Does not help that the guy is a convicted rapist, and was recently arrested in Salt Lake for knowingly failing to register as a sex offender.

Any endagered reptiles, mammals, or birds live on the parcel?

Sacred Mormon burial sites?

Indian artifacts?

Any possibility to call it a wetland?


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Is this just Grade A Nimbyism or is there a real reason the property should not be developed?


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^fuck nimbyism and all, but i wouldn’t want a rich, rapey, creep literally in my back yard either.

Write a quasihistoric religious text. Claim a white salamander led you to a place on that lot where you found golden plates you transcribed.

Instant historic site

To those asking why… have you lived next to a development being built? Not enjoyable.


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Yeah, pretty much anything that will require a "study" should sufficiently gum up the works.

You never know what they'll unearth too.

sprinkle arrow heads every where and have the area declared some kind of FN heritage site

Well-placed turtles have killed projects here in MA

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Originally Posted by oldnew_guy

People wonder why we have a housing supply shortage.

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We're not short on houses, we have too many people.

Yeah, it is sort of grade a nimbyism. But, the irregular grade of the property incuding steep hills, natural drainage runs, and MASSSIVE amounts of grading work that would need to be done should concern every single homeowner around the proposal. This dude is gonna dig out a TON of dirt on a fault line below your house? You better be concerned...
And yes, the plan we have heard from the guy, is that he plans to live in one of the homes. Convicted Rapist who was arrested in Feb for intentionally violating the sex offender notification requirements in SLC.
And yes, it would be right behind my house.

Here is a link to the permit application...
https://citizenportal.slcgov.com/Cit...howInspection=

I would just ensure that proper geo surveys and risk assessments are done by qualified engineers. Beyond that is just being another asshole NIMBY.

Any chance the Pueblo lived in some of the steep red areas?

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Originally Posted by Timberridge

Any chance the Pueblo lived in some of the steep red areas?

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We are looking into that. There are rumors....


As for the grading work and the fault line, there is real concern there. I've seen the land back there shift over the years, and our home sustained damage from the earthquake in SLC last year.
And the dude is a convicted rapist who knowlingly tries to evade the sex offender registration and notification requirements, and a bunch of us in the area have little girls. Not cool

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

We are looking into that. There are rumors....


As for the grading work and the fault line, there is real concern there. I've seen the land back there shift over the years, and our home sustained damage from the earthquake in SLC last year.
And the dude is a convicted rapist who knowlingly tries to evade the sex offender registration and notification requirements, and a bunch of us in the area have little girls. Not cool

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Maybe look into fighting the frontage variance they are requesting?

Edit-

Here is how I’ve seen this done.

Have someone who knows or can learn the code and engineering standards on your team, typically a retired lawyer or engineer type with lots of time, unless you have money to hire your own experts.

Become deeply knowledgeable of the development and permitting process.

Challenge any variances. Not just to the local authority, but continue to challenge it as far as possible (state boards, etc).

Challenge any “assumptions” the engineer is using to justify their decisions. Debate definitions of terms, etc. Take a hard look at their slope stability calculations and assumptions.

If there is any sort of input from elected officials, wage a pressure campaign.

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Originally Posted by mcphee

^fuck nimbyism and all, but i wouldn’t want a rich, rapey, creep literally in my back yard either.

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So which is it? :D

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

We are looking into that. There are rumors....


As for the grading work and the fault line, there is real concern there. I've seen the land back there shift over the years, and our home sustained damage from the earthquake in SLC last year.
And the dude is a convicted rapist who knowlingly tries to evade the sex offender registration and notification requirements, and a bunch of us in the area have little girls. Not cool

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Is he under any restrictions along the lines of "can't live within 1/4 mile of a school"? If so, maybe you can get together with the neighbors and open a day care / Montessori school etc.

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Originally Posted by oldnew_guy

Also, Better Call Saul has you covered:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zPV0KTSwqEA

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KpuSHljW52I

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Good one, beat me to it.

Didn’t Arrested Development cover this? New developments, sex offenders? Sudden Valley!

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

And the dude is a convicted rapist who knowlingly tries to evade the sex offender registration and notification requirements, and a bunch of us in the area have little girls. Not cool

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Do the Mormons have anything like this you can call upon?

Attachment 422097

Maybe you can convince sAvE oUr fOoThIlLs to take on your cause.

this is literal NIMBYism. literally. Ugh.

that said, me and my cohorts always joke about sprinkling a few arrowheads around a site when the project starts to be a real PITA during design haha. thatll shut it down real quick when cultural artifacts get found.

Also, that grading plan looks expensive AF on first glance. thats a fuckton of money and engineering to sink into just building a single lot. I could give lots of advice here, but im not licensed in your state, and i aint getting paid.

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Originally Posted by oldnew_guy

Yes. Right now. They are infilling a large lot with ~8 houses. They followed code and development standards, not my business to make life hard on them.

People wonder why we have a housing supply shortage.

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This. A growing population needs somewhere to live.

Literal nimbyism indeed. Looks like the 4 lot plan was shut down by the city, just got off the phone with a planner.
For the single family rapist home, he is referring to the slope study submitted for the 4 lot plan. I think we'll be contesting that.
Having a registered sex offender as a next door neighbor drives down property values by an average of 12% according to one study in 2008.

Sex offenders have been proven to drive down property values. Houses next door to a registered sex offender dropped by up to 12%, according to a 2008 study by the American Economic Review.

This is just such an upsetting attitude. Why is ok that someone built your house but the next guy can't build his?

This is why housing costs are through the roof and the next generation's finances are fucked.

Selfish entitlement should not be supported. Stop being a jerk. If you want to do the right thing start helping him to build as many units as possible, stop urban sprawl, and take responsibility for reducing our environmental footprint.

It's so ironic that we have both this thread and a thread complaining about rising housing costs near ski areas on the same board.

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

Literal nimbyism indeed. Looks like the 4 lot plan was shut down by the city, just got off the phone with a planner.
For the single family rapist home, he is referring to the slope study submitted for the 4 lot plan. I think we'll be contesting that.
Having a registered sex offender as a next door neighbor drives down property values by an average of 12% according to one study in 2008.

Sex offenders have been proven to drive down property values. Houses next door to a registered sex offender dropped by up to 12%, according to a 2008 study by the American Economic Review.

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Maybe it's best you don't encourage him to register.

IIRC Benny's bootfitter was a sex offender.

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Originally Posted by californiagrown

Also, that grading plan looks expensive AF on first glance. thats a fuckton of money and engineering to sink into just building a single lot.

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We had a guy do a single or double lot in our town. Impossibly steep. The amount of grading and concrete poured was obscene. As I understand it, he was in the business so that helped offset otherwise prohibitive costs. This was next to a friend's pad. He sold. But if I lived there I'd be concerned about drainage and how much instability it introduced.

The result is a sort of ugly, impractical (steep stairs for everything) 3 story stubby house surrounded by ghastly concrete and nicer, established houses who built on proper land 100 years ago. Did it reduce everyone's property value - I'd guess yes but there's no accounting for Texas taste; the insurgents will buy almost anything.

There's no way someone can make a legit case that much concrete is an environmentally sound footprint for just a few lots.

I think the guy still lives there, I'm uncertain about any past rapes or sex offences... I think he does have gauche truck and a tesla so anyone's bet.

I just sold a house in Denver two houses down from a sex offender and given what I made on the house I am quite certain that the sex offender had absolutely no impact on the value.

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Originally Posted by adrenalated

I just sold a house in Denver two houses down from a sex offender and given what I made on the house I am quite certain that the sex offender had absolutely no impact on the value.

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Was the property developer a sex offender though?

That seems to be the NIMBY "problem" here.

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Originally Posted by adrenalated

I just sold a house in Denver two houses down from a sex offender and given what I made on the house I am quite certain that the sex offender had absolutely no impact on the value.

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How do you know you couldn't have gotten 12% more?

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Originally Posted by PNWbrit

Was the property developer a sex offender though?

That seems to be the NIMBY "problem" here.

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That, and i don't want a bunch of digging into sandy loose hillsides that are already slowly falling down on their own. Other homeowners above the property ought to be very concerned. Oops, we made this cut, and now the hill is eroding faster, and we build a cheap retaining wall, that barely meets earthquake specs...
Would that worry you if you were adjacent? It should.
For this very reason, the guy who has been trying to sell for 30 years has not succeeded in any development attempts, and there have been several.
The convicted rapist part is icing on the cake. Don't want it. This is a built out section of the city. There are lots of proposed development plans that should not go forward, and when there is a buck to be made, people will keep trying whether they should or not. And it only takes once for it to get approved.

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Originally Posted by Percy Rideout

This. A growing population needs somewhere to live.

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This is one of the swankiest 'hoods in SLC. This is not an affordable housing issue, Dude.

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Originally Posted by snowaddict91

Maybe you can convince sAvE oUr fOoThIlLs to take on your cause.

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Listen to this guy. If nothing else you'll get better advice than you will here.

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

That, and i don't want a bunch of digging into sandy loose hillsides that are already slowly falling down on their own. Other homeowners above the property ought to be very concerned. Oops, we made this cut, and now the hill is eroding faster, and we build a cheap retaining wall, that barely meets earthquake specs...
Would that worry you if you were adjacent? It should.
For this very reason, the guy who has been trying to sell for 30 years has not succeeded in any development attempts, and there have been several.
The convicted rapist part is icing on the cake. Don't want it. This is a built out section of the city. There are lots of proposed development plans that should not go forward, and when there is a buck to be made, people will keep trying whether they should or not. And it only takes once for it to get approved.

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If you really want to prevent future development you need to get your own seismic study in hand to protest any possible permits being issued. Maybe a sit down with your county/city engineer and have an honest conversation about the long term view of the parcel of land in the eyes of the municipality. Ultimately it comes down to the fact you don't own the land and at some point the value of it will be worth the cost to develop it unless you have legal objection in place to prevent permits being issued to build. The sex offender issues is a whole different deal.

agreed, we do have the benefit of my neigbor being a seimologist professor at the u of u.

Worst case scenario is multiple homes with large grading work and one home occupied by rapist criminal (latest arrest 2/2022)
Less bad is single family home with rapist.
Less bad is single family with no rapist.
Looking at the latest plan with 1 home, is that he is situating it on one of the predrawn 5 lots, and given developers in Utah have a history of buying, trying to get entitlements, and suing (and winning) when they don't get their way (initially), we think he is setting himself up to do this.
Latest conversation with a city planner is that the 5 home plan was rejected (not reflected in app process yet) and given that the applicant has opened multiple other permit requests, and the home on one of the predrawn lots, the planner doesn't think the developer is on the up and up and is being shady.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcM3Y1gPBXE

Get a bunch of homeowners together and buy the parcel from him?

If a multi-million dollar home is stopped because of NIMBY-ism, where will the next generation of millionaires live? Clearly we need to make space for this poor development guy, it's very unfair.

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Originally Posted by EWG

This is just such an upsetting attitude. Why is ok that someone built your house but the next guy can't build his?

This is why housing costs are through the roof and the next generation's finances are fucked.

Selfish entitlement should not be supported. Stop being a jerk. If you want to do the right thing start helping him to build as many units as possible, stop urban sprawl, and take responsibility for reducing our environmental footprint.

It's so ironic that we have both this thread and a thread complaining about rising housing costs near ski areas on the same board.

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Stop being a jerk? I laft hard.

Sex offender. Nuff said. Fight this however you can.

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Originally Posted by californiagrown

this is literal NIMBYism. literally. Ugh.

that said, me and my cohorts always joke about sprinkling a few arrowheads around a site when the project starts to be a real PITA during design haha. thatll shut it down real quick when cultural artifacts get found.

Also, that grading plan looks expensive AF on first glance. thats a fuckton of money and engineering to sink into just building a single lot. I could give lots of advice here, but im not licensed in your state, and i aint getting paid.

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I hope whoever chose that color scale and labeling died of spontaneous human combustion.

Srsly, was kinda lukewarm on BB's plans, until I scrolled to that drawing and my goddamn office sprinklers went off...

Now I'm like, 'This fucking pyro rapist freak is Trouble. If I was Mormon, I'd have to call my bishop about this shit.'


To OP: Find all the property corners on all his lots, and shrink his property by the same 12.71' all around his exterior perimeter. Why 12.71'? It's pseudo-random, yet conforms with Benford's law. Will drive surveyor and fiery color scale engineers nuts trying to figure out what happened and if they're getting blindsided by some conveyance they're not professionally aware of and hence liable for...

Another fun way to monkeywrench a land development is to come out at night and scratch out utility locates, so they'll have to call and likely pay again to get it re-marked with a surveyor right there to locate the locates...

You can also move survey points, just a little. Nevermind the tall lath marker with the flagging, you want to move the precise point in the ground next to it marked with a rebar or nail or flush peg with a tack in it, or something similar. You want to move them 6" or less, and make them look like they haven't moved. When the guys who set them come back and can't check in to their own work, it'll set up a chain of fear and recrimination and re-do that's hard to beat.

Illegal, sure. But not very. So make your first assault count before they get wise and set up any way to catch or deter you. Remember too, kids pull up lath all the time...



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This is so easy. You just need to convince the guy the land is haunted. I saw it on Scooby Doo like a hundred times.